Back in the Swing of Things
The Olympics really cut into my reading time, but here are some offerings from the last week.
Review: Necropolis Alpha by Chris M. Arnone
This is book two in a cyberpunk series. Specifically the subgenre I call Cyberpunk In SPAAACE. It’s set on Little Sekhmet Settlement, which is run by five corporations. Or is it one corporation. Elise is corporate intelligence, a professional thief.
This is pretty much classic cyberpunk. People have bionic modifications (mods), some of which are voluntary, others not so much. It’s a heist story and a thriller and has decent pacing. Elise is a touch noir, and honestly a pretty good protagonist, although she never quite feels like a woman to me.
There’s some decent queer rep (Elise herself is asexual and sex repulsed but not aromantic, her partner is non-binary, and there are random queer people in the background).
The plot twist at the end got to me, but I can’t remember if I ever read book one, so I might have missed something in there.
Oh, and the video game tournament/convention is quite something. The tech is plausible and appropriate for the genre.
The punk, though, isn’t quite there yet. I kept waiting for it, but Elise is not only loyal to her corporate masters but is given no reason not to be. Yes, there’s a massive conspiracy, but her boss is nice to her. Most of the time.
There’s stuff here that could be better, but this is best read as a corporate thriller with cyberpunk trappings.
I received a free copy of this book for review and award consideration purposes.
Review: Exoputians by AJ Pagan
CW: Mention of child abuse, on camera rape, use of a variety of slurs including the n word. By the bad guys, but still.
I wish I could say I liked this book. Bluntly, I didn’t. There were two aspects to it, both of which have been done better. The first is the collapse of the United States into dystopia (with a strong nod to the fact that for some people it has always been a dystopia). The second is old fashioned transhumanism. One has been done better by Margaret Atwood and Robert Heinlein. For two, I’m thinking of Zenna Henderson’s Tomorrow People.
Pagan is not any of these people, but there’s a really solid effort here to make his highly cynical point…this book declares most of humanity unsalvageable, especially white humanity. Unfortunately, this ends up somewhere between extreme cynicism and white guilt.
Also, he named his sensitivity reader. You do not name sensitivity readers. As hard as it seems, if you put something racist in your book, your sensitivity reader will be blamed.
I can’t recommend this book. I wish I could. I think the author has a lot of potential and I’m usually very there for books that punch Nazis.
But not this one. This is, of course, only my opinion and you might just love it.
I received a free copy of this book for review and award consideration purposes.
Review: The Young Necromancer’s Guide to Ghosts by Vanessa Ricci-Thode
CW: Domestic abuse, death of a child
And now for something I thoroughly enjoyed. “The Young Necromancer’s Guide to Ghosts” is a sweet middle grade story involving adorable dragons and a young woman who sees dead people…in a land where there are no necromancers. Why? Because they cremate their dead and ghosts can only stay as long as at least one of their bones is intact.
So actually, they do have necromancers, they just don’t typically know they are because there are ghosts. Enter Lusi. Necromancers have to be exposed to death to awaken their magic. Lusi is that rare unfortunate, a child necromancer, because her twin brother died in the womb.
In lands that do have necromancers, they act as conduits between the dead and the living, helping people get closure, allowing ancestors to advise their descendants until they are ready to move on. (Sometimes, I’d imagine, the descendants are only so grateful).
Lusi, her sibling Marsi, and her ghost friend Shirla have to deal with a problem that ties in to wider things but is ultimately deeply personal.
Her aunt chose the wrong man to marry, an extremely evil aquamancer (this is a high magic world and wizards are everywhere) who abuses her, is controlling over the rest of the family, and is determined to have Marsi, who is AFAB, marry his equally abhorrent son.
The two young people flee, but they get help.
This is a classic young wizard coming-of-age book, but it’s also a book that serves as a gentle, age-appropriate exploration of death.
Get this one for your kids, then steal it back to read yourself once they’re done. Recommended.
I received a free copy of this book for review and award consideration purposes.
Review: Lost Ark Dreaming by Suyi Davies Okungbowa
On the face of it, this is an arcology dystopia story, and there have been plenty. True, this is the first one I have read set just outside Lagos. The tower is a refuge, but the rich live at the top and the poor at the bottom, under the water. (I personally feel this is ripe for reversing that trope).
It’s beautifully written and one of the best of the type, but then…oh man…here be spoilers.
It takes a left turn into fantasy, or perhaps was there all along. Africanfuturism seldom draws a strict line between the two and Okungbowa reminds me enough of Okorafor to wonder if there’s a connection between the two writers.
And it takes another turn and finds itself deep within the peculiar shared world of The Deep. At which point it loses all the trappings of its trope and becomes something distinctly African.
The ending isn’t quite what I would have needed, but I have to recommend it anyway, especially to people who keep finding themselves in that dark world.
Honor to the drowned.
I received a free copy of this book for review and award consideration purposes.